I. Project overview
Vocational colleges are an important part of the national education system and hold a unique position, playing a key role in training professionals and passing on technical skills. To meet the demand for talent in emerging fields, they should be sensitive to the economic, social and technical demands nationwide, and adjust the development direction and the professional curriculum design based on the talent demands of industries and enterprises.
Industry-education integration and Institute-enterprise cooperation are basic modes of vocational education and the key to running it well. Digital Marketing Industry School of Shandong Institute of Commerce and Technology (SICT) (hereinafter referred to as the “School”), keeping up with the development trends of digitally-enabled industry, intelligent management and high-end brands and focusing on advanced manufacturing and modern agriculture, is making efforts to promote Institute-enterprise cooperation on education and to cultivate digital business talent with high-level technical skills and an international vision.
II. Specific approach
1. Innovate the modern apprenticeship talent training mode for business disciplines
Firstly, the modern apprenticeship talent training mode for business disciplines introduces two initiatives at the same time, i.e. “bringing real projects from enterprises into the campus” and “sending apprentice students to enterprises for learning”, which makes up for the shortcomings of traditional business education.
Secondly, cross integration of rotational learning on cross disciplinary based on actual projects from cooperative enterprises is implemented to train students’ holistic understanding of business service posts and general technical skills. The organic integration of learning based on cooperative enterprises’ projects and serving cooperative enterprises improves the business service ability of teachers and students and lowers the cost of trial and error in enterprises. Progressive integration of innovation and entrepreneurial abilities with professional teaching, both of which are developed and deepened simultaneously, is implemented to enhance students’ technical skills and their ability to apply innovative solutions in business services.
Thirdly, a training mode is designed to enhance students’ skills in four stages. In the first stage, students develop basic technical skills for modern business service posts through project-based learning integrated with the curriculum. In the second stage, leveraging cooperative enterprises, students undergo rotational and job-specific practical training based on actual projects, training their ability to solve complex business service problems. In the third stage, students engage in on-the-job practice through enterprise/skill master studios, consolidating their business service technical skills. In the fourth stage, with the support of cooperative enterprises and on-campus resources, students enhance their ability to apply new technologies and innovative models, as well as their entrepreneurial awareness. Ultimately, this approach prepares students as highly skilled and qualified employees for internships and employment in enterprises.
2. Introduce enterprises into the Institute and select leading enterprises as partners
Through strict screening, the School has selected leading enterprises with compatible values in the fields of commercial circulation, cloud computing, big data, AI, high-tech, advanced manufacturing and modern agriculture as partners, including:
(1) Shandong Commercial Group Co., Ltd., one of China’s Top 500 Enterprises, 32nd of the Top 100 Enterprises in Shandong Province, Shandong’s Socially Responsible Enterprise, and leading enterprise in modern business service.
(2) Inspur Group Co., Ltd., one of China’s Top 500 Enterprises, and a leading service provider in cloud computing and big data.
(3) WinWin Network, a leading data factory in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, and a standard for offline retail monitoring.
(4) iFLYTEK Co., Ltd., one of China’s Top 100 Internet Enterprises and a well-known listed company in the Asia-Pacific region for smart voice and AI, as well as Kexun Jialian Information Technology Co., Ltd. in the ecosystem of iFLYTEK.
(5) Other advanced enterprises in manufacturing and agriculture in Shandong Province.
3. Introduce industry to education and cultivate talent needed for industrial transformation through Institute-enterprise cooperation
(1) Cultivate talent through cooperative education
The School has launched a co-construction program for the Marketing major in cooperation with Shandong Inzone Automobile Co., Ltd., Shandong Freda Biotechnology Co., Ltd., and Lushang Education Holding Co., Ltd. subordinated to Shandong Commercial Group Co., Ltd. The cooperative parties utilize their respective resource advantages to carry out in-depth cooperation in all respects, covering professional talent training mode, curriculum system, teaching resources, faculty, experimental training, internship and employment, skills competitions, vocational training, project cooperation, technology research and development, social services, etc. They make concerted effort to develop and build the major better, to enhance the comprehensive strength of the major, to improve the quality of education, teaching and students’ employment, and to train innovative, inter-disciplinary, highly-competent talent who possess both moral integrity and ability for the modern business service in the fields of automobile marketing and cosmetics marketing. Since 2021, 330 students have been enrolled and trained in the School.
(2) Cooperate in training applied talent for business intelligence in an era where data is king
Sticking to the point of “Digitally-enabled Business Disciplines”, the School has jointly established the “Inspur Industry School” with Inspur Group Co., Ltd., and set up the “Applied Talent Training Base for Business Intelligence”, “Business Intelligence Teacher Training Base”, “Inspur Business Intelligence Research Institute”, and “Inspur Research Center for Business Intelligence Teaching Application Products”. The School focuses on business intelligence, and the cooperation involved covers technology innovation, talent training, teacher training, social services, etc.
The Shandong Province Fast Moving Goods Data Center has been established in cooperation with Beijing WinWin Network Technology LTD. to collect offline retail data from the POS systems of five types of businesses in Shandong Province, including shopping malls, large supermarkets, small supermarkets, convenience stores and grocery stores. With the data center, a better understanding of the market performance of individual brands and commodities is available. The data center provides in-depth market insights, new product iterative development and product launch, distribution and promotion decision-making for the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry using Internet big data and assists regional brands and enterprises in utilizing POS data for business growth.
(3) Upgrade the specialty to develop new types of trainers for intelligent customer service robots
In cooperation with iFLYTEK and Kexun Jialian, the School has taken the lead in introducing an intelligent marketing robot training system for the digitized and intelligent upgrading of traditional industries, and has jointly set up an Intelligent Customer Service Training Workshop as well as an Intelligent Robot Multi-modal Training and Application Research Center through the Institute-enterprise cooperation. Guided by the industrial demand in the field of AI, the Center is dedicated to the construction of an interactive marketing service platform using natural language with intelligent robots and a phonetic and semantic knowledge base for AI in the field of digital marketing. Its goal is to facilitate the deep integration of the development of disciplines such as information technology and business services, promote the future development and application of intelligent robots in the field of digital marketing, and contribute to the full upgrading of the development model of “AI + Field + Product + Service” in Shandong Province. Through Institute-enterprise cooperation, the courses of intelligent customer service robot business application series that integrate theory and practice are developed to train high-quality, creative technical and skilled talent with all-around ability in the “digital + intelligent” digital marketing field for regional economic development, and to provide strong talent support for speeding up the building of a great modern province.
(4) Provide technical support to empower the retail industry of Shandong Commercial Group Co., Ltd.
In cooperation with Kingfar International, Inc. and Joywise Education, the School has built a Consumer Behavior Digital Marketing Laboratory to study the change of consumer behavior in the context of digital marketing technology, the influence of marketing strategies on consumer behavior, and other issues, with a focus on digital technology enabling marketing. Technologies such as EEG measurement, eye tracking and physiological measurement are applied to record and track the changing characteristics of the subjects’ visual, auditory, tactile and other neural activities in real time, and to objectively and quantitatively analyze the mechanism behind consumers’ psychology and decision-making behavior in the commercial field, thus providing scientific basis for marketing decision-making. The research results have been applied by Shandong Inzone Tianzun Automobile Co., Ltd. to the establishment of a consumer scientific decision-making system, which will enable store consumers to know their own potential preferences, motivate consumers to make accurate purchase decisions, help sales staff at 4S stores quickly make a deal, improve sales performance of stores, and empower the retail industry of the Group.
III. Construction achievement
In the digital age, through the deep industry-education integration and Institute-enterprise cooperation, the School actively embraces the forefront of digital technology industry and fully puts digital technologies such as big data, Internet of Things, virtual reality and AI into all aspects of specialty construction. Furthermore, in a less favorable environment, it has established a strong support by introducing digital technology, AI technology and data technology for the reconstruction of new thinking, new models, new scenarios and new technology maps in the field of digital marketing, and enhanced the new demand of industrial transformation and upgrading for marketing talents who are competent in “digitalization + intelligence”.
1. Digital technology contributes to transformation and upgrading of enterprises
Through big data analysis, the School works out user portraits for enterprises to build personalized service marketing scenarios, and provides the foundation and basis for marketing scenarios such as brand planning and promotion, precision marketing and personalized services of the enterprises. It applies neural marketing technology to marketing planning and realizes quantitative analysis of consumer behavior, which is a breakthrough from qualitative analysis. So far, it has provided decision-making support for the brand planning schemes and copywriting promotion schemes of more than ten county-level enterprises in Shandong Province. Furthermore, the School has upgraded product instructions by using VR technology, realized interactive 3D dynamic demonstration scenarios of complex commodities, and produced more than ten manuals for industrial products and consumer goods of enterprises, wining unanimous praise from the customers and consumers. It provides AI-based customer services, and replaces traditional customer service staff with digital employees, which reduces the cost of enterprises. Up to now, it has developed four knowledge bases in the marketing fields such as customer service and sales for enterprises. In addition, it provides information services for SICT, including four knowledge bases related to visit introduction, information collection, internship return visit, and consultation.
2. Project-oriented teaching serves society
The School introduces real social service projects into the classroom, and implements project-based teaching, with teachers and students jointly completing the real projects of enterprises in the class.Here are some examples. The course Brand Planning and Promotion provides brand planning for Jinye’s new hawthorn products. During the course Community Marketing, campus community operation was carried out for the Folding Ear Rabbit Discount Store. During the course Short Video and Live Streaming Operation, the brand promotion with new media was carried out for the “Backyard of Mountain Village” project in Dongquan Village, Caishi Town. During the course Market Research and Analysis, the customer behavior data from the sales terminal of Shandong Hifirst Foodstuff Co., Ltd. were analyzed, and strategic suggestions for channel transformation and upgrading were put forward. In the past three years, the School has provided more than 60 business service projects of technical skills for enterprises and 36 business service solutions to county economy.
3. Task-driven improvement of students’ technical skills
Tahe School actively cooperates with local enterprises, and introduces enterprise and industry norms such as job requirements and occupational skill standards into its courses based on typical occupational activities of enterprises, realizing the organic integration of learning, competition and social services, as well as task-driven teaching, which further improves students’ technical skills significantly. In the past three years, our students have won more than 60 awards in various competitions.
Contributed by: Zhang Xiaohong from the Digital Marketing Industry School October 24, 2023